


Under Your Skin

by Estrea



Category: Morning Musume.
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Body Modification, Cybernetics, Cyberpunk, Developing Friendships, Gen, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:15:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24576670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estrea/pseuds/Estrea
Summary: Ikuta Erina visits a tattoo parlor, but it is more than it seems...
Kudos: 5





	Under Your Skin

The windchimes at the door tinkled a welcome and warning both, the rush of air and noise penetrating the sealed space like a gasp cut short, as the heavy metal slab fell back into its casement.

"Welcome."

The four walls did not so much echo the flat greeting as absorb it, the dull patina of the surface seeming to swallow light as much as sound. Lights were built into panels at strategic points, making the room seem to glow from some inner radiance, blurring the sharp edges where the corners met. Display units sprouted like columns of a fortress, or perhaps, a temple? -- the centre of which sat a lone figure, bent over a still dummy, fingers probing nimbly in quiet focus.

"Riho."

The newcomer said without any aplomb, as if she were just picking up the threads of a conversation just put down. No niceties or conversational warmers. "How do you do"s were for lesser beings. For Ikuta Erina, they were a mere waste of time, a view shared by the girl she had come to visit.

"You again."

The girl bent over her dummy did not even bother looking up. Her long black hair was pulled into a messy bun, fringe swept aside and held in place with a clip. An ocular lens was fixed over her left eye, and her hand was steadily tracing the head of the dummy she was working on. A healing scar ran from the edge of her exposed scalp and over her temple, the stitches still fresh from having the thread removed. The thread had still been there on her last visit, and Erina suspected that the girl had removed them herself, as she was wont to do.

"I want more done. The receptors aren't enough." 

Riho's hand paused over her work, and the girl looked up. Her left eye looked hideously magnified with the lens over it, and she flicked it out of the way, folding it back to rest against her temple. It was near invisible to the untrained eye, but on close observation one could see the thin strands of titanium alloy wire embedded into the skin to hold it in place. It was crude work, but Riho didn't allow anyone else to operate on her, and it was the best she could do with a mirror and a lot of patience. 

The girl herself was a patchwork of surgical scars. Erina could not help but stare. She did not know the extent to which Sayashi Riho had carried out her hobby, but close scrutiny would find tiny, near-invisible lines where cuts had been made, and the barely visible bumps of subdermal implants. To some, it would look ghastly; to Erina herself, it was ideal.

"How are you adapting to the receptors?"

Erina ran a hand through her shock of bronzed hair. Part of it had been shaved at the sides to allow for the first of the real implants she had asked Riho to patch into her, just weeks ago. The first few days, beyond the physical pain of operated flesh, was wracked with mindsplitting headaches that left her a twisted wreck in her single-room apartment. It was a week before she could even venture out, and  _ that _ had been another shock to the senses.

It had just been a game, when she had first stumbled onto this obscure little shop tucked away in a corner of the tenement, egged on by a dare from one of her colleagues. It was nominally a tattoo parlor, hence the elaborate designs scattered for perusal all around her. The real reason she had been dared to come in though, was to speak to the normally-silent tattoo artist, who in her own way was quietly famous in that area. 

Flesh Sculptor Sayashi. Mad-Eye. The Picasso of Skin Art. 

It was said that she offered more services than merely decorating the surface of your skin. If you asked, properly, and if she was in the right mood, she'd throw in a free experience -- one that was rumoured to "change your world". Erina's colleagues had dared her and her silver tongue to coax that out of the taciturn Sayashi, just to see what the fuss was all about.

It hadn't been successful the first few times. Sayashi proved a hard nut to crack, inscrutable and often sullen and caustic in her comebacks. Erina had even gotten a tattoo in the process of trying to get the recalcitrant tattoo artist to open up, and the resulting butterfly had been hauntingly beautiful, threatening to almost burst out of her skin and take flight. 

Erina could have given up. But she could not, not so much as a matter of pride -- of which she had plenty, no doubt of that -- but because she had noticed the scars. 

The lines had been faint and old, some newer than the rest, but ever changing. She had noticed this after a while, how the landscape of Riho's flesh seemed to tell a different story in between visits. It became a cipher she had to crack, an obsession she did not dare voice to her colleagues, who had since forgotten the dare after that drunken outing and the impromptu tattoos they had all gotten on a whim.

No, this was something Erina was doing for herself. There was a story there, she was sure. And she was determined to find out what it was. 

And find out she did, though it was quite a shock to the system.

It had been an accident. She had taken Riho's hand, despite the girl's reluctance for bodily contact -- ironic, when she as a tattoo artist had to deal with the human body -- and a surge of electricity had run up her arm when their fingers touched. Erina had a habit of wearing rings, and as it turned out, they had reacted to the magnetic receptors Riho had implanted under her own skin. It was quite the nasty shock, and the normally cool visage of the tattoo artist had collapsed for a microsecond, but it was long enough for Erina to notice, in her electrocuted haze, that Sayashi Riho was actually quite adorable when she wasn't trying so hard.

There hadn't been much to say afterwards. At Erina's insistence, Riho had acquiesced to place a tiny chip underneath the skin of a finger, just to let the girl find out how it felt to have magnetic fields literally at one's fingertips. The process had been painful, but Riho was experienced, and managed it with a minimum of blood and fuss. It was almost poetic to watch her work with the same precision with a scalpel as she did with a tattoo pen, and if it didn't take away the pain, at least it was an equitable distraction.

It had been a revelation, to feel things previously unseen. Erina had marvelled at how things felt different with the chip in her finger. Waves of new sensation, a world opening before her. That was how it felt, and it was quite the experience to see Riho light up when she talked about opening her senses to a wider range of input. She was only limited by materials and her own ability to operate on herself, with little to no anesthesia, since she could not work under those conditions. 

Before she knew it, Erina found herself coming back even more often, and though Riho put up an indifferent front, the girl did not seem unhappy for the company. It told in the little things; the receding of the ice in her tone, a slightly warmer spark in her eyes when she deigns to look over. They were not quite friends, not yet, but they were growing familiar in their own ways.

There is a strange pleasure in being united by their niche interests. Erina had learned, partly through Riho and mostly via her own research, that there was a whole subculture dedicated to the practice, but it was mostly underground and frowned upon in wider society. They were extreme biohackers, dismissed as fringe nutjobs who were taking unneeded risks in an attempt to integrate man with machine. 

And there  _ were _ risks, everything from death by infection during amateur surgery to toxic shock from the introduction of foreign bodies into the human body. Riho had been reluctant to operate on Erina at the outset precisely because of this. It was one thing to experiment on oneself and suffer the consequences if any, but operating on another person was something else entirely.

Informed consent was a thing, and when Erina had been insistent after learning about all the possible risks, Riho had finally agreed to it. It felt like a shared secret, something quiet and special just between them, and what was more intimate than having someone cut into you and sew you back up?

It added a spark to an otherwise uneventful life, and even the pain was a perverse enjoyment on some level. Erina never thought herself to be the type, but perhaps the forbidden had always worked a peculiar seduction upon her. She couldn’t get away even if she wanted to.

“It’s been...unusual. The world feels different, somehow.” Erina takes a seat by Riho, watching the other girl etch careful lines on the dummy. A new project, perhaps? There wasn’t anyone else for the girl to practice on, and she had to plan carefully before taking the knife to her own skin. Erina couldn’t imagine how the girl did it, and respected Riho all the more for it. 

“Really does make you see how much we don’t see with our eyes,” Riho agrees with a small smile. She puts down her pen, turning to give Erina her full attention.

“Are you sure you want more though? It’s barely been more than a week…”

“I’m sure.” 

Erina states with all certainty, reaching out with the hand that had an implant. There is a jolt as she lets it hover a half inch over the exposed skin of Riho’s arm, and she could clearly see the fine hairs on the other girl’s arm stand up as the static builds up between them. 

She sees Riho’s breath catch, a minute tremble in the same arm she was not quite touching, before the tattoo artist withdraws said limb, looking at her with something close to reproach, but not fully offended. Erina grins, lowering her hand.

“You always seem so lost in your own world, Riho. I just want to see what’s in there too.”

Riho rolls her eyes eloquently, but the tiny upturned curve at a corner of her lip betrays her small pleasure. So few people bothered to really look at her, and it was...nice to have someone sincerely take the time and space to enter the world she was so immersed in.

Even though she was bad at expressing herself, she could appreciate that.

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Ikuta.” Riho turns to put her tools away, resolutely putting her back to the taller girl. As much as she did appreciate the company, it still felt too fast, too much of an intrusion into her secluded existence. She was  _ used _ to her solitude. Having someone determinedly trying to break it was a strange mix of welcome and unsought for feelings.

Ikuta Erina was someone who was entirely unlike her, despite their newfound connection over a shared interest. Riho never forgot that, and was just naturally cautious. They were not the same, and she couldn’t know the reasons for which Erina was so enthusiastic about her hobby. 

Perhaps it was the way the gangly brunette looked at her, like she was a puzzle to be solved, but also, maybe, as a friend? Riho had spent so much time alone that she couldn’t be sure. She was used to being treated as a curiosity, and most of her clients didn’t come so much to get tattoos for themselves as to gawk at her own elaborate tattoos that so often hid the surgical scars from where she had operated on herself. 

She was her own walking advertisement. She didn’t mind...too much. A girl had to eat somehow.

In a way, it was a shield. She hid behind her cold attitude and her inked body, and the appearance of someone who seemed to look past all those to see her for herself left her just a little on this side of flustered. It was an unusual feeling...and Riho didn’t know how to deal with it.

She hears Erina chuckle behind her, the electrical field of her biosensors giving her enough of an outline to “see” the other girl stretch out on the comfy lounge chair where her clients usually sat to get their tattoos done. So few people made themselves at home so easily, and Riho envied the ease with which Erina could settle into any new place and fit right in as if she had always been there.

It was a skill she never learned. Always on the outside, always watching, and even her own hobby simply took her further out of step with the rest of the world. That was fine with her, but sometimes, looking at the relaxed, cheerful Erina, Riho wonders if she too, could be as comfortable in her own skin as the other could be.

“And yet I don’t hear a no.” Erina’s voice cuts into her musings, and Riho allows herself a smile, hidden from her patron. She might be the one wielding the scalpel, but somehow, Erina was the one who always knew how to get under her skin. No one else could or did.

And perhaps, one day, she could even grow to get used to that.

**Author's Note:**

> Dug out a half written fragment from my drafts and decided to finish it because it looked interesting. <3
> 
> Just a quick AU character study. Don't really intend to continue XD


End file.
